


Heavy as Love

by AeeDee



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 15:15:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2314100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AeeDee/pseuds/AeeDee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A heavy relationship between two weary souls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy as Love

His gloves are rough and scratched-up like the rest of him, warm with sweat and soaked in the scent of asphalt and smoke. His thumb brushes against his partner’s bottom lip and it’s almost a sign of endearment; so rare for him to make contact at all.

But his touch is coarse and clumsy, forceful and it leaves a tingling sensation in its wake—a brief, uncomfortable ache—that scatters through his bottom lip and he wants more of it, needs so much more than that to feel satisfied.

“Hey, Batman,” and he wants to say _Bruce_ but he can’t, so he settles for second best.

“Not now,” he’s not even allowed that much.

It doesn’t hurt him. He’s learned not to feel the sting from words that cut him down at the knees. The cold and blunt commands with good intention hidden far below the surface. He’s learned to separate the man’s affection—the fondness in his brute touch, in those soiled gloves that brush across his lips and the subdued mouth that sometimes whispers against his neck—from the words themselves.

Because words are only words, and love is heavy and the two must never meet.

Other people think it hurts. They think it should. When Bruce says something so sudden, when he shuts him down. When he uses a single command to move him back into the same place he’s stood since he was a child.

Sometimes it stings. At the end of a long day when he wants to be close, to feel the other’s heartbeat against his chest as a reminder that he’s still alive. When the night’s slowing down and he doesn’t want to sustain his own weight anymore, doesn’t want to carry his legs further. When it’d be nice to press himself against his back and let the thundering rain pass them by on the streets below.

Sometimes it hurts in a way he can’t resolve, a wound that’s agitated by its own stitches. Claws at his chest and it just makes the pain spread. Makes him shiver and blink back tears when he’s alone in the darkness of his bedroom in the twilight morning, when his lover disappears into the shadows.

Sometimes he disappears when he’s asleep beside him. When he places a hand on the man’s shoulder and he instinctively turns away and recoils further into himself. When he says something quiet, something as simple as “Goodnight, Bruce”—with as much fondness as he can force into the simple words he’s allowed to say without retaliation—and the affection’s not returned.

When his words of love are stated and abandoned in the silence between them, when they slowly sink to the ground and he watches—does his best to subdue the rising tide of fury, the cracks behind his resolved face—as the man he loves more than anything turns in the other direction and carries on.

“I love you,” he’s said it before. The absent response like a knife wedged deep and he’s learned not to give it voice since then.

Love isn’t supposed to be painful. That’s what they tell him. Friends, they say that whoever his mystery man is, he doesn’t sound like he’s worthy of his time. Siblings, unaware that he’s in love with their father figure, they tell him that he seems down, seems like he should walk away. Peers that notice his lingering looks and posture, when Bruce puts distance between them and he slowly presses himself into the wall and slides down, legs not wanting to sustain his body anymore.

It’s not easy.

And it never will be.

It’s a quiet night like this, when the man brushes his thumb against his bottom lip and refuses to comment on it, refuses to draw attention to it. Says “you’re bleeding,” and gives it no further attention. Return to business as usual.

When they have sex and soil their bodies; then shower and wash themselves clean. Back to the routine and the job, balancing exhausting hours of self-sacrifice and the aching, bitter span of hours and sometimes days between the frantic and frenetic moments of release.

When they’re on the job and Bruce slams him against the wall, grinds harsh fingers against his groin and almost fucks him through his uniform. Tugs down his collar and hungrily devours his neck, and Dick’s panting in silence, mindful to subdue his own noise. Humps against Bruce’s hand in silence and claws into his shoulders. Fingers digging in deep and scratching down his back when Bruce starts to grind against his thigh. It’s difficult to feel through his uniform so he grinds hard and heavy, leaving bruises when he gets carried away.

They don’t usually make it to a bedroom. Not when a mood like that strikes. It’s too sudden. Bruce gets hard and heavy fast so he doesn’t like to wait. They grind and they pant and breathe deep and sometimes Bruce makes the impulsive decision to unzip his partner’s uniform and sprawl his legs over his lap. Dick’s teasingly tugging at his pants and it’s one of many reasons why Bruce carries lube tucked away in his belt.

If he thinks back, he can still remember the first time it happened. His heart threatened to split into pieces because he thought it’d never happen again. _Too far_ , he thought. _Too far now_. Bruce cleaned him up afterwards but he was so silent, so solemn that Dick felt certain he regretted it.

He’s learned that Bruce’s restraint only goes so far. That’s the gamble. Sometimes they go for days with so little as a touch, and suddenly they’ll grind patrol to a halt and he’s sitting in Bruce’s lap, being fucked deep and desperate on the rooftop of a quaint café where Dick fetches coffee on his weekend mornings.

They’ve done this so many times. At a certain point it feels like a tired and old game. He feels too weary and too old and too impatient and too stifled and like he’s tripping on his own feet trailing behind him.

But he still shivers when Bruce touches him. Still rolls his hips when the man’s hand presses against his thigh and trails upwards. Still feels his heart rush and his temperature rise when he hovers above him, a shadow that’s soothing like coming home, the stoic look he’s learned to ignore. The cold stare he’s learned to look past. To perceive more; to understand better.

“Hey, Batman,” he tries again. Because he’s not so easily shut down.

“Later,” it’s not a suggestion, but Dick’s going to interpret it as one.

“What time,” he smirks at him.

A familiar glance; the look of acknowledgement he’s been waiting for. Sometimes it takes a shallow joke to crack the ice.

“I’m turning in,” he says.

Bruce doesn’t respond. His silence says enough. Callous as he turns his back to him. Terribly familiar; when he sinks into thought and swallows his words before they can escape.

“I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

Bruce doesn’t respond.

So Dick nudges him in the side, “Alright.”

“Ok,” a brief pause, and he’s noticing the light in the distance. “Good morning.”

“It will be,” a faint smile, and Dick’s turning his back to him. A few confident strides across the roof and he’s making the great leap from it, swift and beautiful. Vanishing with barely a sound and a soaring spirit as he chases down the sunrise.

Bruce’s eyes are lingering in that empty space, captivated in the same way he often is. When he watches Dick move, stilled by his beauty, his energy, his grace. His softness and his strength and his ability to shift, to transcend between states.

Powerful and efficient. Dedicated. Compassionate and vivid, his eager kisses and fragile sighs and the way he moves, flesh incorporeal when they merge into each other. The long and exhausting days when they barely speak and he can sense his partner’s rage in that void. The mornings when he’s certain Dick resents him enough, finally enough to leave this behind him. When familiar nightmares of loss and ache return in those quiet nights and he would rather leave their bed than stay and inflict that darkness upon him.

But Dick is strong. He is powerful. He is everything and nothing, close and distant and evolving and changing beside him, adapting, reacting. He is resilient and beautiful and intimidating and a lot to handle and simultaneously no burden at all.

It’s when Bruce allows himself to establish contact, when he presses his face against his neck and feels the softness of his skin and the pulse traveling through his body, when he senses their energies merging and their intentions nearing a rare moment of agreement. It’s the sensation of stumbling across a bold line in the sand and being unable to step back; he’s intoxicated. He sinks in and breathes deep and slow and can’t pull away until he’s sated and he's emptied himself inside him.

It’s disgusting, in a way. But it’s blissful, too.

He’s been told he should call it love. When he admitted there was someone in his life, someone he couldn’t separate from. Someone he thought of every day, someone he needed more than breathing, more than anything else he’d ever owned or obtained. When his friend Clark laughed in his face and told him he sounded smitten.

Sure. Maybe he did.

He’s not fond of the word "love". He’s heard it before, on a few separate occasions he can still remember. His parents when they’d say goodnight, a girlfriend in high school that blushed when he’d hold her hand, although he thought little of it. A woman in college that wanted to move in with him and didn’t understand why he didn’t want to share more of his life with her. A longtime friend that sent him affectionate letters and became resentful when he gradually stopped answering them.

Dick Grayson, his companion in life. Almost every time they spend the night together, with his arms around him he says it without thinking. Spills out the words and almost attempts to take them back. Insecure and fragile in a fleeting instant before he straightens his posture and carries on. Soldiers on like a good old boy.

Dick Grayson, when he was seventeen years old and scared to leave home because he was worried they wouldn’t see each other again. “What if you move on without me,” he said. “What if you forget everything.”

Never.

Dick Grayson, when he was turning twenty-three and drunk and happy on the night of his birthday, fumbling and collapsing with laughter in his arms. He was upset because other friends had cancelled their plans; Bruce still remembers it because Dick called him at midnight and asked if there was a way, any way he could make time for him. He never asked for favors but he wanted just this one.

Dick Grayson, when he was turning twenty-four and it was after he admitted that yeah, he’d had moments of feeling low and depressed that he never told him about. When Bruce put a hesitant arm on his shoulder and Dick reached over, laced their fingers together and kissed his hand.

Dick Grayson, when he was-

Dick Grayson, in the incomprehensible moments of silence and stillness and terror and agony and overwhelming closeness, when they stare at each other, inches between them and he’s a world away. His heavy eyes and the bitterness of tears he can’t shed, tears he won’t dare to let fall. Because he’s strong and he’s a good soldier and he’d sooner die than allow Bruce to believe he can’t rely on him, that he can’t depend on him, that he’s not there every step of the way.

When they stared at each other and Dick believed Bruce was going to die and he held his hand and said it was going to be okay. Hand shaking and he was blinking back tears but it didn’t matter because he was strong, he was good, he was alright and “Don’t you dare worry about me, Bruce.”

He’s not fond of the word “love.”

Love is for the well-adjusted. It’s strong and fragile and fickle and ever-changing and impermanent. It comes and goes with a broken promise or few and enough angry words. You shout and you throw something and you move on and then you repair the damage and carry forward.

He’s never found a word for what he feels.

Never found a word for his attachment. Never found the word for his obsession. The fact that he will inevitably die and whether he is standing beside him or alone, he will leave with the memory and the weight of their time together in his soul.

It’s not something as fickle as love that binds them together.

Dick Grayson believes in the concept of love. Believes in the word. But the meaning he attaches to it eludes Bruce, each and every time he says it. Feels light when he says it, basks in it, is so consumed with love that he openly gives and communicates the feeling to so many people in his small world. Friends and close peers and former romantic partners that freely communicate love. What they believe love is, anyway.

Bruce doesn’t like words. Doesn’t believe in placing so much power and emphasis behind a word that means so many things and yet encompasses so little.

Words are only words, and what he feels is heavy and the two will never meet.

Sun’s rising.

That’s his cue to turn in. His signal to return home.


End file.
